New Delhi, Oct 25: The Election Commission (EC) is expected to roll out the first phase of a pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists next week, officials said Saturday. The exercise will begin with “10 to 15 states,” including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal, all scheduled to hold elections in 2026.
Officials noted that the SIR will not be conducted in states where local body elections are underway or imminent, as election machinery at the grassroots level remains preoccupied with the ongoing polls. “States with concurrent local elections will be included in later phases,” an EC official said.
Bihar, which will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11, has already completed its voter list revision. The final electoral roll, published on September 30, includes nearly 7.42 crore names. Counting in the state will take place on November 14.
“The last SIR conducted in a state serves as the cut-off date for revising the voter list,” an EC source explained. Bihar’s 2003 voter list was similarly used for intensive revision during previous exercises. Most states had conducted their last SIR between 2002 and 2004, and many have now nearly completed mapping current electors against the previous rolls.
The primary goal of the SIR is to identify and remove names of foreign or illegal migrants by verifying the place of birth. The move gains importance amid recent crackdowns in several states on illegal migrants, including those from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Several state chief electoral officers (CEOs) have already published their last SIR voter lists online. In Delhi, the 2008 list from the previous SIR is available on the CEO website, while Uttarakhand’s last SIR took place in 2006, with that year’s electoral roll posted online.
